Social media marketing!

Social media marketing is a, relatively, new way to actively utilize some internet marketing techniques. Don’t discount it just because it is ‘new’ though! Social media can be a very powerful tool.

Take a look at Facebook. Easily and hands down, this site is the biggest in the world with a highly active membership and tons of conversations going on daily. By digging yourself into the trenches and really going where your customers are, you can find out a great deal of info and figure out how to properly utilize the channel to gain yourself some valuable readers and customers.

Twitter is another site with a great and active membership. Following the trends set off by hashtags can help you figure out what your customers are wanting, needing, and asking for. Besides, who doesn’t love a good hashtag and marketing yourself on less than 140 characters?

Pinterest is WAY hot right now. Everyone and their mother loves to go on there and find some great new products and tools to make life easier and their homes prettier. Some estimates have shown Pinterest as being the third largest driver of traffic world wide. You’d have to be stupid to miss out on that kind of traffic generating machine.

One social media site that is not used as often as it should be but is oh so valuable is: Quora. Seriously, this place rocks. It’s a question and answer social media site. That gives you the power to show that you are an expert in your field.

So, let’s say you hop on Quora and find a question that is relevant to your blog or site, and answer it. That person loves your answer, and checks out your bio to see how you know so much. They see your site link and bang, you’ve got yourself a new reader. Why? Because you proved that you were knowledgeable on a topic they needed answers on.

Google+ is another social media site that is not used as often as it should be. Google+ uses ‘circles’ instead of ‘friends’. And there is no limit to the amount of people you can have in your circles, plus you can control the privacy settings on each circle.

What’s nice is, if someone in your circle Google searches for something, and you just so happen to write about that topic, because you’re connected to them, Google will bring your site’s results higher in their SERPS, as long as its connected to your Google account. Pretty nifty right?

YouTube is another great social media platform. People LOVE videos. Content done in video form is much more likely to go viral and people are also more likely to come back to it and watch it again, especially if your video speaks to their emotions. By hanging out a bit on YouTube and commenting on videos that have content similar to yours, you are going to get yourself noticed. This will drastically increase your views and shares!

There are dozens and dozens of other social networking sites as well. Some are very niche specific, which can be great for you! While they may not have the billions of members that Facebook has, a niche social network will be filled with those who are interested in what you have to offer.

Focusing on those smaller market sites with a very specific membership may not get the amount of eyes on your site that, say, a giant social network will get you, but it will pay off by giving you a readership that is only people who want to see what you have to say, which is ultimately better off for you anyway. Who knows it might be the right stepping stone to make you a millionaire.

Social media marketing can be one great way to get your content shared and visible to those who matter most. Get in there, get yourself sharing, and earn those readers.